Japanese Books

Essential Kanji: 2,000 Basic Japanese Characters Systematically Arranged For Learning And Reference

P. G. O'Neill

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 53 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Pointless 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

There is no reason to buy this book. It is not a kanji dictionary, so it will be of limited use for that purpose. It also has very limited use as a self-instruction text, because the order the kanji are presented in is illogical for foreign learners (so many times you end up learning a complicated kanji, only to find that simple parts of that kanji turn up as their own kanji *later in the book*), and there are no mnemonics of any kind. Many compound words are presented, but there is no information on how to actually use them, so you cannot use it to learn new vocabulary unless you already know the words. The stroke order diagrams are mildly helpful, but you can find animated ones online for free (WWWJDIC will have a diagram for probably every single kanji in the book). Basically, the book amounts to one big kanji list. Henshall's Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, etc. are much better than this.

Editorial Review:

Essential Kanji is an integrated course for learning to read and write the 2,000 basic Japanese characters. It introduces the kanji that are now in everyday use, a mastery of which makes it possible to read most modern Japanese. Devised for either home or classroom use, the book has been tested and refined by years of use in university classes taught by the author.

Snow Falling on Cedars

David Guterson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 699 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Read by B.D. Wong
Two Cassettes, 3 Hours


NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM UNIVERSAL PICTURES


Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award

American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award

San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound, is a place so isolated that no one who lives there can afford to make enemies.  But in 1954 a local fisherman is found suspiciously drowned, and a Japanese American named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder.  In the course of the ensuing trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than a man's guilt. For on San Pedro, memory grows as thickly as cedar trees and the fields of ripe strawberries--memories of a charmed love affair between a white boy and the Japanese girl who grew up to become Kabuo's wife; memories of land desired, paid for, and lost. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched.  Gripping, tragic, and densely atmospheric, Snow Falling on Cedars is a masterpiece of suspense-- one that leaves us shaken and changed.

Making Sense of Japanese: What the Textbooks Don't Tell You (Power Japanese Series) (Kodansha's Children's Classics)

Jay Rubin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Making Sense of Japanese is the fruit of one foolhardy American's thirty-year struggle to learn and teach the Language of the Infinite. Previously known as Gone Fishin', this book has brought Jay Rubin more feedback than any of his literary translations or scholarly tomes, "even if," he says, "you discount the hate mail from spin-casters and the stray gill-netter."

To convey his conviction that "the Japanese language is not vague," Rubin has dared to explain how some of the most challenging Japanese grammatical forms work in terms of everyday English. Reached recently at a recuperative center in the hills north of Kyoto, Rubin declared, "I'm still pretty sure that Japanese is not vague. Or at least, it's not as vague as it used to be. Probably."

The notorious "subjectless sentence" of Japanese comes under close scrutiny in Part One. A sentence can't be a sentence without a subject, so even in cases where the subject seems to be lost or hiding, the author provides the tools to help you find it. Some attention is paid as well to the rest of the sentence, known technically to grammarians as "the rest of the sentence."

Part Two tackles a number of expressions that have baffled students of Japanese over the decades, and concludes with Rubin's patented technique of analyzing upside-down Japanese sentences right-side up, which, he claims, is "far more restful" than the traditional way, inside-out.

"The scholar," according to the great Japanese novelist Soseki Natsume, is "one who specializes in making the comprehensible incomprehensible." Despite his best scholarly efforts, Rubin seems to have done just the opposite.

Previously published in the Power Japanese series under the same title and originally as Gone Fishin' in the same series.

Toyota Production System on Audio Tape: Beyond Large Scale Production

Taiichi Ohno

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Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Before Ohno's landmark work, the methods of the Toyota Production System were closely guarded secrets. Ohno was the primary architect in rebuilding Toyota in the 1960s and 1970s, and these tapes reveal the origins, daring innovations and ceaseless evolution of the Toyota system into a complete management system.

Ohno's revolutionary innovations at Toyota included:

• Reducing waste, finding and eliminating it at all levels
• Multimachine handling by a single worker
• "Autonomation" -- machines and workers that stop a line or process automatically when abnormalities occur
• Poka-Yoke mechanical-fail-safe devices to prevent mistakes
• Just-in-time and kanban -- reversing the flow of production information, training supplier companies to produce and deliver just-in-time
• Preventive maintenance to eliminate machine breakdowns
• Development of the "SMED" system -- reducing machine setup time to permit smaller lot sizes

  This abridged version of Ohno's classic book runs for 180 minutes on two audio cassettes.

  The original hardcover edition is also available from Productivity Press.

  To order, call 1-800-394-6868 or visit www.productivityinc.com.

Japanese Kanji Flashcards, Vol. 1 (Third Edition)

Max Hodges, Tomoko Okazaki

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Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The NEW 3rd Edition of White Rabbit Press' Japanese Kanji Flashcards: The Complete set of Kanji required for Levels 3 & 4 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test

We've gathered all the essential information needed to master kanji into a convenient flashcard format that makes learning and drilling as efficient as possible.

Preferred by thousands of students, in over 25 countries, White Rabbit Press is the recognized world leader in Japanese kanji flashcards.

Each card includes six vocabulary building kanji compounds. We include more vocabulary than other publishers' cards because the essence of a kanji is best grasped by understanding the meanings it forms when combined with other characters.

We only use kana scripts--not romaji--to show kanji readings, and we provide clear and precise definitions in English, so you'll spend less time reaching for a dictionary and more time learning kanji. Each card also includes the kanji's On and Kun readings, stroke order diagrams, look-alike kanji, and more.

Quality Construction
Cards are varnished with rounded corners for durablilty.

Color-Coded
* 103 JLPT Level 4 cards in Green ink
* 181 JLPT Level 4 cards in Blue ink

*Includes a complete index.
*Boxed with plastic tray and shrink-wrapped

What's new in the Third Edition?
In addition to some minor design improvements, we made many changes to the vocabulary. The set now includes more official JLPT vocabulary and indicators to let you know which words are important for the test.

Let's Learn Hiragana: First Book of Basic Japanese Writing (Kodansha's Children's Classics)

Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

AMAZING!!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Ok, believe it or not, Using this book, I mastered reading Hiragana in 3 days. Of course, I couldn't put it down, and I also bought hiragana flash cards too which helped a lot as well, but still, the books was AMAZING. if you are trying to learn Hiragana in a flash, this is a great book. I can now read hiragana just by looking at it, and I can write it too. It's a great book and I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn hiragana easily, and in a way, kinda fun too!

Editorial Review:

There are three types of Japanese script--katakana, hiragana, and kanji. It is possible to read Japanese knowing only a limited number of kanji, but it is not possible with only a limited number of katakana or hiragana--one must know all of them. Let's Learn Hiragana, and its companion volume Let's Learn Katakana, is a textbook that introduces the learner to the basics of one of these fundamental Japanese scripts. Being a workbook, it contains all the exercises that allow the student to master hiragana by the time the book has been finished. Let's Learn Hiragana is a classic in the field, and the huge number of students that have used it successfully is a sign of its preeminence as a self-study guide.

Japanese Step by Step : An Innovative Approach to Speaking and Reading Japanese

Gene Nishi

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A fabulous reference for the beginner and intermidate student! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

First off, this book it not going to have you speaking japanese once you finish reading it. What is will do, and do VERY well, is explain to you the complicated and heady rules and structures of japanese sentences and grammar. I found it to be a fabulous tool in showing everything from conjugating verbs to structuring simple sentences, all the way up to more comlicated sentences. Until I bought and used this book, I found that most books on Japanese were very vague on japanese grammar. The method of teaching tended to revolve around loosely explaining, and then showing students different sentences over and over until the meanings and usages eventually sunk in. The author here(who states early on that he is an engineer by career) uses a much more logical and systematic approach. He uses flow charts and lays out the stuctures of the senteces bare, explaining each part and how it works. Rather than naturally figuring it out ( which could take a great deal of time) he points out how everything works and encourages you to make use of this knowledge. In this manner you are shown the things you would learn naturally and then shown how to corelate it to equivlant english meanings. This is the way that adult brains glean knowledge best. Given a bit of time and practice, the english associations soon fade away and you can look a Japanese sentence and understand both its meaning and its stucture!
As you progress through the book, the sentences get more challenging and build on things you've learned in previous chapters, so it becomes a natural preogress for your mind to learn the next step. It's a very effective and rewarding method, because as you may know when learning a language, the more you learn, the more you WANT to learn...it becomes fun and addicting. Struggling to memorize the usages of particles and verb versus noun cojugations only slows down the process and can take away the students' desire to stay at it. "Japanese Step by Step" helps alleviate this; it really helps you feel like Japanese is not an impenetrable force...just another language that's a little different than your own.
However, as i first stated, this book alone is not going to have you speaking perfect japanese. It's a terrific resource that I think every student of the language should have...in ADDITION to at least one other comprehensive text (and/or audio lessons, and even better, live classes). My only complaint is that this book WAS designed for IBM employees originally, and as such teaches strictly very formal, professional japanese...the type an educated adult would use in the office or workplace. This is not a bad thing per se, but if you strictly learned to speak like this, you would sound rather awkward in social or family situations, particuarly among the younger crowd. But again, I don't recommend this as your sole learning source, just a strong supplement!
Anyone who's fist dipping into the Japanese language will find a lot of help in this book, and any intermediate student can benefit from it as an informative reference text. There's a lot to be learned here; I know I wasn't disappointed!!

Editorial Review:

This self-study text offers a breakthrough approach for beginning learners of Japanese, as well as an indispensable reference for intermediate students. The unique study method in Japanese Step By Step teaches how to construct Japanese sentences, from the simplest to the most complex, using an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method. Also contains flow charts for verb conjugations and derivations.

Remembering the Kanji, Vol. 1: A Complete Course on How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Japanese Characters

James W. Heisig

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The aim of this book is to provide the student of Japanese with a simple method for correlating the writing and the meaning of Japanese characters in such a way as to make them both easy to remember. It is intended not only for the beginner, but also for the more advanced student looking for some relief from the constant frustration of how to write the kanji and some way to systematize what he or she already knows. The author begins with writing because--contrary to first impressions--it is in fact the simpler of the two. He abandons the traditional method of ordering the kanji according to their frequency of use and organizes them according to their component parts or "primitive elements." Assigning each of these parts a distinct meaning with its own distinct image, the student is led to harness the powers of "imaginative memory" to learn the various combinations that result. In addition, each kanji is given its own key word to represent the meaning, or one of the principal meanings, of that character. These key words provide the setting for a particular kanji's "story," whose protagonists are the primitive elements.

In this way, students are able to complete in a few short months a task that would otherwise take years. Armed with the same skills as Chinese or Korean students, who know the meaning and writing of the kanji but not their pronunciation in Japanese, they are now in a much better position to learn to read (which is treated in a separate volume).

Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary

Seigo Nakao

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Good Dictionary 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

All the ones I had where Japanese-English only so with this one it is a great way to look for the words, and it does bring some examples too but for a quick search tool or to look a bit more after know how the word is, it is very useful.

My favorite Japanese / English Dictionary 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is by far my favorite dictionary for Japanese. And believe me, I went through several trying to find one I liked. The Romanji and Kanji definitions are exactly what I needed as a beginner and now, as an intermediate student, they still prove very useful. I use this everyday.

I would also recommend The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary as a nice compliment to this dictionary. If you're using Japanese in a business environment, I might suggest Cassell's English-Japanese Business Dictionary which may be hard to find but is a good permanent piece for your reference collection.

Editorial Review:

Hundreds of new words are included, such as fakkusu (fax). Japanese terms are shown in roman letters and Japanese characters. The dictionary also includes a selection of Japanese cultural terms and concepts.

Dirty Japanese: Everyday Slang from "What's Up?" to "F*ck Off!" (Dirty Everyday Slang)

Matt Fargo

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Beware... 2 out of 5 stars.
12 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I am a student of the Japanese language so I bought a copy of "Dirty Japanese" thinking it would nicely round out my education, which is mostly from staid textbooks. Well, I showed it to a bunch of my Japanese friends, and they were laughing their a**es off at the extent to which many of the phrases in the book were either inaccurate or simply dated. I admit this book is somewhat humorous to read even if you don't speak Japanese at all, but beware, you might not be learning anything useful by reading it.

A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I have a fairly large collection of Japanese language textbooks (many of which I've bought at Amazon over the years). Much to my surprise, I've found that I consistently use all of them and none of them collect much dust.

However, with this particular title, I've finally found a real dud among my Japanese language learning texts.

The biggest problem is the lack of an index (which pretty much means that, while some people may find the book funny to thumb through, they won't find it useful as a reference book).

The second big problem is that the author injects far too much of himself into the book. He very loudly and aggressively wants us all to know that he is the hippest person to ever walk the streets of Japan.

That, combined with his endless, jarring hip hop/street slang is very distracting and annoying (it was annoying enough almost two decades ago when the middle-class Vanilla Ice tried to convince us he came from the 'hood; it's even more annoying now).

I would also fault the author's grasp of the Japanese language. His "English" translations of a lot of phrases include many expletives that simply aren't there in the original Japanese text.

Last, but not least, is that the author doesn't seem very well informed about Japan. He informs us that Japanese cops don't carry guns (not true) and that they're the biggest jerks in the world. The fact is, if the Tokyo police were indeed "jerks" to the author, he richly deserved it (as he gleefully spends much of the book talking about all the fights and reckless trouble that he got into while in Japan). For the record, I've visited Japan and found it to the safest, most peaceful nation I've ever seen. The Japanese people are some of the most polite folks on earth--but you'd think they were all a bunch of violent thugs after reading this book.

The world still needs a good comprehensive reference book that rounds up Japan's trendy language and street slang. This book isn't it.

Editorial Review:

Invaluable for those traveling to Japan, this guide features useful sidebars featuring English expressions commonly used in Japan. Pronunciation guides, a reference dictionary, sample dialogues, and an offensiveness-rating system from "use at will" to "use at your own risk" also help readers learn to communicate effectively.